Guild Catalog Sees Picture-Perfect Holidays

Catalog sales for Guild LLC exceeded expectations by 29 percent while catalog expenses dropped 60 percent during the holiday season, the retailer of original art said.

Guild, which spun off from Ashford.com in August, started making holiday preparations during the summer. The company shifted its online marketing to focus on existing customers and placed more emphasis on its holiday catalog.

For the year 2001, the company saw a 20 percent across-the-board increase in sales over the previous year. Guild credited a demand for gifts for the home during the holiday season, along with deeper integration among its Web, catalog and publishing channels.

Sales for some product categories rose as much as 60 percent over the previous year, the company said. Overhead expenses for the fourth quarter of 2001 fell about 20 percent, and cost of goods fell 22 percent compared with the same period in the previous year.

Guild, Madison, WI, offers more than 10,000 works of original art from about 1,000 artists.

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